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Saturday, December 08, 2012

What You See Is Not All There Is

Daniel Kahneman- the psychologist who won an Nobel Prize for Economics- has uses a concept of "What You See Is All There Is"- which states that humans tend to form impressions based purely on the information available to us, even when that information is very minimal. We do not stop to consider what important information may be missing.

I think the reaction to the nurse who killed herself after receiving a prank phone call from an Australian radio station is an example of this. All the public "know" about her are that she received the call and she killed herself therefore the assumption is that the phone call led to her death.

This may be right but given that it seems such an odd reaction to the prank call and that people have all sorts of relationships and ambitions that are far more likely to affect their well being that a two minute radio call, it seems unwise to assume that her apparent suicide was related to the prank without knowing more about her life.

9 comments:

I agree - but the assumption that it's an 'odd reaction' is surely also a subjective one based on certain cultural norms.

You're right to keep an open mind, though; one of the most disturbing aspects of the whole sad business is the way this suicide is being headlined and deplored by the same media that gleefully recounted details of the hoax to as wide an audience as possible.

I think her reaction (if it was suicide) was not a logical reaction.Then again I think if you humilate enough people in front of millions you probably get someone committing suicide.If you can live with on your conscience I feel sorry for you.If you can't then perhaps best to have a different style of broadcasting. Eh Jeremy Kyle?

Julia has a point - especially as it turns out the nurse was a Catholic.

There can be no doubt that she was under immense emotional stress as a result of the prank call and the resulting media frenzy; this surely cannot be dismissed as unconnected with her death, whatever the cause.